Health Education Research, Vol. 18, No. 6, 706-716,
December 2003
© 2003 Oxford University Press
‘If I let a goal in, I’ll get beat up’: contradictions in masculinity, sport and health
Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT, UK
e-mail: s.robertson{at}lancaster.ac.uk
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This paper presents a critical exploration of the relationship between masculinity, sport and health by reporting findings from a wider qualitative study on lay men’s and health professionals’ beliefs about masculinity and preventative health care. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in relation to ‘men’s health’. In particular, the Department of Health has highlighted how men’s connection to sport, fitness and competitiveness can be used in health promotion initiatives to introduce facets of health. In contrast, work in the sociological and feminist literature has raised issues of concern about the relationship between men, masculinity and sport, particularly the links to aggression, misogyny and homophobia. It would appear then that a straightforward ‘men + sport = health’ relationship cannot be assumed. Focus groups and interviews with health professionals and men, including gay and disabled men, were undertaken to facilitate examination of the socially integrative meanings of sport and masculinity, and their relationship to health. Socializing, ‘macho’ culture and the body emerged as three main themes, and the implications of these empirical findings for health promotion are discussed.
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Introduction |
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Recent years have seen a surge in Department of Health interest in promoting men’s health as part of the wider quest to address issues of inequalities in health in the UK (Department of Health, 1993, 1998). The Health Development Agency has commissioned the mapping of men’s health initiatives, an All Party Parliamentary Group on men’s health is now established and recent public health ministers have identified male:female mortality ratios as ‘the biggest inequality of all’ (Department of Health, 2000
; Browne, 2001).
The government has outlined through its health (Department of Health, 1998) and sports (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2001) policies the importance attached to encouraging participation in sport as a way of improving the health of individuals and society. In particular, the Department of Health has highlighted sport as a successful medium through which to engage in health promotion work with men (Department of Health, 2000), approving and funding initiatives such as ‘Keeping It Up’ (Wilkins, 2001) and ‘Alive & Kicking’ (Robinson, 2001) as examples of best practice. Such projects specifically ‘tap into an essentially male way of looking at the world’ [(Wilkins, 2001), p. 137], utilizing men’s connection with sport, fitness and competitiveness ‘to introduce other facets of health’ [(Robinson, 2001), p. 142]. Implicit in suggesting sport as a way to engage men is the notion that men qua men have a special relationship to sport as an institution or domain. Yet men’s relationship to sport is not problematized, it is taken for granted as a neutral (or even inherently positive) relationship that can (and should) be exploited for the purposes of engaging men in discourses about health practices.
In contrast, work in sociological and feminist literature on gender and sport has raised issues of concern about the relationship between masculinity and sport. Such works outline how, historically, sport became institutionalized as a way of nurturing in boys the values necessary for manhood (competitiveness, toughness, desire to win, superiority); a means of instilling ‘moral fibre’ or ‘character’ in boy’s (Holt, 1989; Beynon, 2002); and recent work by Frosh et al. [(Frosh et al., 2002), p. 77] suggests that sport still plays a key role in the construction of ‘popular’ masculinity for boys in the UK. This process has led some to suggest:
In historically recent times, sport has come to be the leading definer of masculinity in mass culture... The institutional organization of sport embeds definite social relations. [(Connell, 1995), p. 54]
In exploring these social relations, Dunning (Dunning, 1986) shows how the idealizing of a particular type of hegemonic masculinity in sport, and the nurturing of such ‘masculine’ attributes, creates a culture of misogyny and homophobia around sport. A more recent collection of work provides specific examples of how these attitudes are translated into concrete practices of violence between men, homophobic violence and violence against women (McKay et al., 2000a).
These same ‘masculine’ attributes are often cited [e.g. (Griffiths, 1999; Courtenay, 2000)] as reasons why men delay seeking help for health care and engage in more ‘risk-taking’ behaviour [a term used in health promotion that carries strong moral connotations, denoting ‘incorrect’ behaviour and therefore seen as inherently negative, see (Petersen and Lupton, 1996)]. There seems to be a relationship between the values instilled in boys and men through sport and those claimed to be responsible for men’s poor health status and uptake of health services.
It would appear then that a straightforward ‘men + sport = health’ relationship cannot be assumed. Yet rarely has this complex, triadic relationship between men, health and sport been empirically researched. Bourdieu [(Bourdieu, 1984), p. 20] suggests that participation in sports is dependent on the potential benefits and costs to the individual, and these benefits and costs are culturally (and therefore gender) dependent, i.e. it varies depending on ones ‘class habitus’. Likewise, there has been increased attention given to lay theorizing in empirical research on health and health promotion (Watson et al., 1996; Popay et al., 1998) recognizing that health practices (like sports) are socially integrated and that health promotion needs to work with popular culture (Backett and Davison, 1992).
Whilst recognizing the health benefits that physical activity undoubtedly confers both directly and indirectly (Ferron et al., 1999), this paper therefore wishes to begin a critical exploration of this triadic relationship by reporting some of the findings from a wider qualitative study on lay men’s and health professionals’ beliefs about masculinity and preventative health care. The socially integrative meanings of sport and masculinity, and their relationship to health, are examined before identifying the implications of this for health promotion.
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Methods |
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A 3-year study exploring men’s attitudes towards masculinity and preventative health care is presently being undertaken in the North West of England. The components of the study drawn on for this paper are two focus groups and four in-depth interviews with health professionals, and two focus groups and 20 in-depth interviews with men themselves.
The research followed a process of abductive reasoning (Blaikie, 1993) where theory, data generation and data analysis are related dialectically [(Mason, 1996), p. 142]. This approach is broadly interpretivist in nature, allowing for the exploration of lay narratives through recourse to existing social theory. There is a cyclical relationship between theory and data that facilitates the privileging of lay accounts whilst not being reducible to such (descriptive) accounts. The social theory drawn on to facilitate this process was Connell’s framework of gender relations. Connell (Connell, 1987, 1995) suggests masculinities are best understood as sets of relations; not only those between men and women, but also those between different groups of men. He suggests a hierarchy of relations with hegemonic masculinity (representing the dominant, most powerful, form in any given place and time) being the form by which other masculinities become measured and represented as subordinated to, or marginalized from, this hegemony. These are not fixed character types, but represent ‘configurations of practice’ that men move within and between at different times and in different situations. As such, men cannot be slotted into categories of ‘masculinity’, but male identities are formed, and continually reformed, in respect of this hierarchy; men both situate themselves, and are situated, amidst this structure that, whilst being figurative, has real, material consequences.
It was therefore felt important when sampling to include men whose masculinity, Connell suggests is predominantly subordinated to, or marginalized from, hegemonic masculinity. Therefore, amongst the men interviewed, specific subsamples of gay men (n = 7) and disabled men (n = 6) have been included. Consideration was given to the inclusion of ethnic minority men, but the research area has a particularly small ethnic minority population, making it difficult to guarantee confidentiality. Given that hegemonic masculinity by definition acts to silence marginalized or subordinated groups, a decision was made that the focus groups would be delineated by these groupings to allow candid discussions of sensitive issues such as homophobia and disablism. The sample in total therefore represented a theoretically derived, purposive sample [(Silverman, 2000), p. 105].
After gaining approval from the Local Research Ethics Committee, participants were recruited in several ways. First, two large GP practices, one covering an affluent suburban area and one a more deprived built-up area, were contacted. These agreed to act as contact points for recruiting both health professionals and men. Information packs about the research (including an information leaflet and consent form) along with a set of random numbers (selected from the total number of men on the practice list aged 25–40) were given to the practice managers for posting. Replies came directly back to the researcher ensuring that the researcher did not have details of those not wishing to participate and that the surgery did not know who had agreed to participate from the packs they posted. Second, the gay men were recruited with the help of the health promotion unit. Finally, the disabled men were recruited through a contact in the Council’s Leisure Services Department and then making further contacts from these. The final age range of the men was 27–43 years.
The four focus groups, carried out at the beginning of the fieldwork phase, were used to generate sensitizing concepts for the interviews and it is these semi-structured, in-depth interviews that form the data presented here (Kitzinger, 1995). The interviews were designed to encourage the production of narrative data, i.e. ‘stories’ relating to ‘health’, ‘staying well’ and ‘being a man’. These interviews took place over a period of 12 months, being carried out at a time and place of the participants choosing (the majority taking place in the home). The interviews lasted between 40 min and 3 h, the majority being 60–70 min long, and were fully transcribed at the earliest opportunity. Copies of an individual’s transcript were returned to them for validation and further comment, although only one health professional responded, wishing to retract what they retrospectively felt had been a harsh comment.
Preliminary data analysis was completed following each group of three or four interviews through a process of iterative reading and identification of emerging themes. Sport, and associated areas of fitness and exercise, emerged as a sensitizing concept within the focus groups and as a theme within early interviews, and was therefore introduced in subsequent interviews.
Further analysis was completed after all participants had been interviewed. All narratives pertaining to sport and associated areas were highlighted, although kept within the original transcripts to avoid fragmentation (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000). These narratives were then subcoded and the codes clustered into over-arching themes. The themes were then re-examined in the context of the transcripts in full and in relation to Connell’s framework of gender relations. In this sense the narratives were not taken purely at face value, but were subject to theoretical, analytical interpretation. This constituted an adapted form of the ‘constant comparative method’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The adaptation comes through the inclusion of Connell’s framework of gender relations into the continual motion between larger and smaller data sets, there being then a three-way movement of theory, data gathering and data analysis consistent with the process of abductive reasoning. The appropriateness of utilizing the constant comparative method of analysis in this way has been noted by Mason (Mason, 1996), p. 142]. Three themes emerged from this process: sport, socializing and mental well-being; sport, health and ‘macho’ culture; sport, fitness and body image. The following section is therefore organized under these headings. Data extracts are rendered anonymous through the use of pseudonyms, but are identifiable as coming from health professionals [HP], gay men [GM], disabled men [DM] or contingently able-bodied and straight men [CABS]. [It is recognized that the process of ‘labelling’ people is highly problematic, fraught with ambiguity and the potential for offence. However, when looking at sets of relations it allows for the exploration of similarity (as well as difference) when people share some characteristics, in this case being male, whilst differing in others. The term ‘CABS’ is used in this research to recognize those men that did not identify as being gay or disabled. It is used in preference to terms such as non-gay, non-disabled as it is more fluid, recognizing that identities can change over time and that those interviewed may have experienced, or may go on to experience, same-sex relationships or periods of physical impairment.]
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Sport, socializing and mental well-being
Sport was seen specifically as a social activity, associated with ‘getting out’ and being with ‘mates’. For the CABS in the study who participated in sport (either actively or as supporters) this socializing was often linked to concepts of camaraderie and group identity. This was expressed most vividly by Huw who had previously been in the army and was a big football fan:
I think your men, when you go and watch football you’re in a pack aren’t you, everyone there has got the same interest for that day. It’s like warfare really, it’s a pack...everyone around you is experiencing the same thing. [Huw, CABS]
Yet such camaraderie did not necessarily involve interpersonal relationships, and Huw spoke a great deal about missing the depth of friendship he had experienced in the army and getting ‘quite depressed’ at the superficial friendships or ‘acquaintances’ he currently experiences. Thus, as Kidd [(Kidd, 1990), p. 40] suggests, sport can create a mirage of male companionship or bonding yet ‘rarely teach[es] men to get close to each other or open up emotionally’.
For other men though, sport was very much about actively engaging in friendships with people. This was particularly, although not exclusively, the case for many of the disabled men for whom sport was often a first, and very positive, step back into ‘social life’ and a specific antidote to dwelling on their own problems:
...this basketball I do, that’s been a God-send, brilliant. We meet people, we don’t just meet the team, we meet their families, so we get to know people. So it makes you happier in yourself cause when you just sit there, looking at the four walls, you get time to dwell on things but when you’re out, acting, and meeting people you don’t think of it. [Quinn, DM]
Involvement in sport can empower men, including those with bodily impairments, facilitating the (re)gaining of control over lives, a (re)negotiating of identity and the initiation of activities in other social settings (Blinde and McClung, 1997; Valentine, 1999). Quinn’s comments also reflect the idea that, for men, identity is often constituted through ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’ (Morgan, 1990) and sport could therefore provide what Charmaz [(Charmaz, 1995), p. 286] terms a ‘realm of available action’ through which men can (re)gain a sense of a ‘valued self’.
For those disabled men who were involved, sport had also become a site for becoming involved in the politics of disability, engaging in discussions about access and provision of services with local councils and other agencies. However, despite such involvement, the struggle at a personal level to access sport facilities at times left some disabled men feeling demoralized and restricted the use of sport as a social activity:
A year ago meself and Debbie decided to join the local leisure club. They’ve disabled parking, they’ve disabled toilets but no bloody, frigging ramp to get in and there’s only three pieces of equipment that I could use. I thought it would be nice, Debbie could take the kids swimming, I’ll do me weights and things. But it went out the window. I got a bit disheartened because I thought the reason why myself and Debbie joined was, we joined together and it was like a fun thing. [Peter, DM]
Participation in sport was presented at times as a specific and positive alternative to a sedentary lifestyle usually expressed as ‘sitting and watching television’. In addition, sport offered a form of release from the stresses of everyday life, particularly relationship and work pressures. Yet, for other men, it was the stresses of work and family commitments that left little or no time for sport. When the meaning attached to sport is that of personal enjoyment, or providing a point of social contact (i.e. friendship), it is easy to see how it becomes marginalized through the lifecourse as men take on other responsibilities:
I’ve not found a lot of time [for sport] because of various stuff that’s been going on. Family life’s obviously a priority. Then the [voluntary work]’s a second priority at the moment. And I’ve been in a band for 20 years and that’s got priority as well... I used to play [football and squash] every week and that’s very enjoyable. It’s a good workout and I will start that again, one day, its just finding time to fit it all in. [Owen, CABS]
However, for some, especially many of the gay men, team sports particularly, held negative connotations. These men, none of whom currently engage in sport, discussed being ‘forced’ to do team sports at school and the hatred they developed for these. This dislike was often internalized as individual ‘failure’ with phrases such as ‘I was never any good at them’ and ‘I was crap at it’ peppering their descriptions. Being last to be picked for sports teams at school stood out as a vivid and unpleasant memory for these men. However, this does not imply passivity, and two of these men had previously represented school and county in athletic events. Rather the dislike could and did prompt resistance:
Well I was forced to do it [football] at school and I used to stand there for 90 minutes in the middle of the pitch, didn’t move, refused to kick the ball... My biggest ambition at school was definitely to hit the games teacher with a discus and it nearly happened. [Neil, GM]
Given that Neil used to be involved at a high level in two athletic events, it seems clear that what is being objected to is not sport per se, but the hegemonic, ‘macho’ practices that surround it and the homophobia that this entails. As Gary puts it:
Team sports I would have thought was more sort of straight related, you know, like football. [Gary, GM]
As mentioned, masculinities are not fixed character types, but represent ‘configurations of gender practice’ that men move within and between. Sport represents an arena where masculinities can become unstable, evoking contradictory emotions for individual men. The following narrative by Kiaran highlights how men, even when predominantly marginalized or subordinated by hegemonic displays in sport, can find momentary pleasure in complying with such display:
I remember donkey’s years ago at school, being forced to play football and I was crap at it. We were doing three-a-side...you basically had two players and one in goal. They got the football team to pick the teams. So who was stood there last but me. Who do I end up with but these two dead hard-nuts. They were people I didn’t even speak to, we were like complete chalk and cheese. They thought right, stick me in goal and they’d just keep the opposition away from me. It turned out I was rather good at it, cause of the size of me it wasn’t easy for them to get the ball past me. And we won and that was it, I was like a hero, they thought I was great, it were fun. Cause I was thinkin’ ‘if I let a goal in, I’ll get beat up’, you know, that’s literally what it was like, so I didn’t let a bloody goal in. [Kiaran, GM]
Sport, health and ‘macho’ culture
There was a strong feeling among the health professionals interviewed that sport was part of male culture. As such it was seen to present opportunities for engaging in health work with men yet was also seen as representing ‘risks’ in terms of associated health practices:
I think the culture is still for a lot of exercise to be done as a group activity with your friends and is followed on maybe by a heavy drinking session, going out, and then obviously people are smoking. [HP]
Whilst the imagery of sport and heavy drinking was apparent in the interviews with men themselves, the actual practice of linking the two was echoed only in a minority and was often contextualized to times when they were younger, single and without responsibilities. Likewise, the deliberate taking of risks in sport was also only expressed in a very small minority of interviews.
However, examples of ‘playing through’ injuries or pain and ‘doing too much’ was common for those men that participated in sports. It was not unusual for the men to recognize and limit risks, both for themselves and others, whilst simultaneously stepping beyond their own identified boundaries. All of the men who gave such examples had suffered health problems through participation in sport and some directly attributed this to aspects of ‘masculinity’ as Martin explains when discussing a recent injury received on a snow-boarding holiday:
It’s a really steep resort and I perhaps shouldn’t have tried the run on the first day, I perhaps should have worked my way into it slightly but you don’t do you, you think ‘Whey hey, I can do that’. Everyone thinks, Oh yeah, I’ll have a go, a real ‘blokey’ thing. [Martin, CABS]
In this respect, how one ‘does sport’ provides an example of ‘doing masculinity’ and the discourses of ‘masculinity’ and of ‘sport’ can congeal to place destructive controls on corporeal action finding its extremist expression in the aggressive aspects of sport:
I think playing the likes of football, competitive sport is a good release. You can kick hell out of someone and they kick the hell out of you and it’s a good stress buster. [Martin, CABS]
The strong association of sport with ‘macho’ culture also influenced men’s decisions about whether and what sport to engage in. For those gay men who had participated in sport, avoiding team events was important in preventing potentially abusive or dangerous situations:
With [Athletics] being a sort of single event you could just do your event and disappear... I think being a gay man it would be more difficult to go and join in team sports, like rugby and football because, like I say, homosexuals, it’s not accepted everywhere, there’s still a degree of homophobia around. [Neil, GM]
Indeed, for some, the process of ‘coming out’ as gay men meant that ties with sport had to be severed as sport was seen to act as an exemplar of ‘straight’ masculinity that deserves only ridicule as the following conversation highlights:
S. R.: So traditional masculinity is...
Neil: Is going to the pub, drinking 20 pints of larger with your mates after a game of football and going for a curry basically...me younger brother and me sister’s boyfriend, they do football and you can guarantee after the match it’s to the pub and...
S. R.: And would you go with them?
Neil: Maybe. I probably would actually just to laugh at them. [Neil, GM]
Some, such as Tony, himself disabled and gay, went further describing gay men who did have an interest in sport as ‘freaks’. It appears then that deliberate non-identification with team sport is still important in constructing identity as a gay man. Participation therefore would run the risk of alienation from ones peers as well as the risk of abuse and/or violence within sport. In this sense, participation in sport would be counter (gay) culture.
Yet not all team sport discussed fully reflected this ‘macho’ culture. For those disabled men involved in sport the dynamics could be quite different. Wheelchair basketball often involved and encouraged women participants, and there were examples of ‘lending’ players to opposing teams in a swimming contest and playing inexperienced team members in order not to demoralize an opposition team of fledgling players. There was also a playing down of the more aggressive, competitive aspects of team sport:
It’s mainly done on a friendly basis, everyone’s friendly and all that. There are some that are a bit more competitive than others, but mainly it’s more a laugh than anything. [Quinn, DM]
Yet this did not represent a whole-scale change in how these men ‘did’ masculinity:
The good thing is Debbie supports me so a lot of my time is spent on the phone, at meetings, I’m quite busy really running the club and getting meself into the Sports Council. This year we had the International Youth Games, I trained up a group of disabled kids, put them into these games, so I’ve got involved with that and one thing and another. [Peter, DM]
This description suggests that certain hegemonic ideals, the wife as supportive partner, the need for status and position, can be replicated rather than challenged through involvement in disabled sports just as with other sport. Indeed, the presentation of ‘macho’ imagery in rehabilitation literature has been criticised in providing a restrictive scripts for men to begin to (re)negotiate male identity following traumatic bodily impairment (Kleiber and Hutchinson, 1999).
Sport, ‘fitness’ and body image
For most of those men who participated, sport was rarely engaged in because of any direct benefit on physical health, rather it was often related to ‘enjoyment’ and ‘having a laugh’. Indeed, sport and exercise were not always seen as having a direct relationship to health at all, rather ‘health’ was seen by some as a matter of fate, genetics or a ‘natural’ state in which the body maintains itself [see also (Blaxter, 1990; Watson et al., 1996)]:
Huw: I don’t do fitness whatsoever [laugh], I’ve done my share of fitness. I smoke, I drink... When I were in the army I was never bothered about dying. My outlook on life is if my number’s up, my number’s up and there’s nowt I can do about it. But now with the kids and everything it worries me.
S. R.: But not enough to do anything about it?
Huw: No. [laugh] I’ve always seemed healthy really, you know. [Huw, CABS]
This contrasts with some of the ideas held by the health professionals who felt that men in this age group ‘liked to keep fit’ and that:
Health and fitness as perceived by exercise is important to a lot [of men]... I’d perceive it to maybe be their only area of health education, health promotion. [HP]
For those men that did directly equate sport with health, this was usually related to ‘feeling healthy’ and ‘looking good’. This suggests, as Parker [(Parker, 1996), p. 130] points out, that sports culture is intimately linked through consumer culture to health such that images of being ‘sporty’ have become synonymous with being healthy and desirable. In this way, sport also links in to abstract notions about ‘masculinity’ as something achieved through bodily performance [(Connell, 1995), p. 54]. Sport can provide a means of working towards a healthy (i.e. active) body that, in turn, brings confidence. Fran describes a positive, cyclical relationship between ‘looking good’, ‘being active’ and ‘feeling healthy’, and this cycle is generated or entered into through participation in sport:
Fran: Your body’s healthy because your sort of keeping fit in a way, the weights not too bad. It’s all sort of inter-linked into that and your image. So once again you’re feeling confident inside, which makes you feel healthier as well because you’re just confident about everything.
S. R.: And that confidence comes through that positive body image?
Fran: Yeah, and as I say, through the satisfaction of playing your sport or scoring a great goal or something like that cause you’re all pumped-up. [Fran, CABS]
The literal embodiment of achieving through sport, being ‘pumped-up’, having an ‘adrenaline rush’, ‘working up a sweat’, all phrases used by the men, thus represents a further form of ‘doing masculinity’, creating a sense of personal power, control and indestructibility for some men, as Fran pithily puts it:
You feel healthier in yourself because you’re more confident. You feel nothings going to stop you. [Fran, CABS]
However, there was also recognition amongst the men that such short-term gains and apparent invulnerability are often associated with ‘future bodily fragmentation’ resulting from pursuit of a ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality [see (Watson, 2000), p. 82]. At this point a tension arises between the need to pursue masculinity through physical performance and the need to (re)negotiate a male identity that can embrace vulnerability and bodily impairment. As personal narratives indicate [e.g. (Jackson, 1990; Sparkes, 1999], such tensions may never be fully resolved and men often move between models of negotiated masculine identity at different times following bodily impairment (Gerschick and Miller, 1995). Such contradictions, and how masculinity is simultaneously (re)negotiated yet only through reference to hegemonic ideals, are summarized well by Ron:
I certainly think nowadays, with the knowledge and experience as a man, I don’t think twice of when I’m poorly asking for help... It’s definitely a change. I mean you think you’re a bit of a wimp like but I don’t even have a wheelchair in the house cause I was in one for so long I associate, rightly or wrongly, that if I’ve got a wheelchair I’m ill. [Ron, DM]
Ron embraces his ‘new’ masculinity that permits him to ask for help yet, at the same time, recognizes a need to distance himself from being a ‘wimp’, and being ill, by demonstrating physical independence and explicit non-reliance on a wheelchair. Thus ‘macho’ images become simultaneously challenged and maintained.
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Discussion |
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Following the example of other exploratory work (Watson et al., 1996
), this section will sketch some of the wider issues that the relationship between masculinity, sport and health raises for health promotion rather than identifying specific strategies for practice.
Physical activity, including that provided by sport, is both a representation and producer of social relations; entering into sport involves what Connell (Connell, 1995) terms ‘body-reflexive practice’ that forms and reforms individual lives and the social world. Swain (Swain, 2000) and Frosh et al. (Frosh et al., 2002) have highlighted the importance in the UK of school sport, particularly football, in constructing dominant forms of masculinity by which other ways of ‘doing’ masculinity are then measured and found wanting. The avoidance by, or exclusion of, boys/men (and girls/women) from these sports is often part of a wider process of marginalization and subordination which leaves them feeling empty, weak and isolated (Messner, 1992).
This study suggests that sport does act both symbolically and practically, to produce, or at least sustain, dominant male discourses and practices yet, as others have pointed out (McKay et al., 2000b; Wheaton, 2000), it can also be a site for contesting hegemonic masculinity. The deliberate non-identification with, and non-participation in, team sports by gay men, whilst highlighting how sport can be a vehicle for marginalization, also creates space for a form of resistance and non-complicity with damaging hegemonic masculinities. As Pringle’s (Pringle, 2001) narrative explores, movement out of sport can be representative of a positive move from a ‘power over’ to a ‘care of’ relationship towards oneself and others, and this has implications for health and well-being. Likewise, the emphasis on supportiveness, and the elevation of relationships above competitiveness, in sport played by disabled men challenges dominant sporting and masculine discourses. This demonstrates a model for how health promotion work through sport could be done in a way that reduces, rather than relies on, the potentially destructive aspects of competitiveness and a ‘no pain, no gain’ approach.
For those men involved, bodily performance in sport provided a sense of personal enjoyment and achievement that built confidence in other areas of their lives. Yet, the performance of hegemonic masculinity in sport, in competitiveness, in disciplining the body and pushing corporeal boundaries, often had material effects leading to temporary or permanent bodily impairment. As Shakespeare [(Shakespeare, 1999), p. 52] points out, ‘masculine ideology rests on a negation of vulnerability, weakness and ultimately even of the body itself’. Ironically therefore, such bodily impairment required a (re)negotiation of masculine identity for these men that can serve to embody a sense of self and for some this could be achieved through sport.
The promotion of an idealized, sporting body as a healthy one can be problematic for men. In contrast to the beliefs of health professionals interviewed, the majority of men in this study, as in previous studies (Watson, 2000), did not find such imagery either meaningful or attainable as health, and even ‘fitness’, were more often associated with the ability to fulfil social roles. Care should be taken then because the promotion of ‘health’ through such imagery may be counterproductive, contributing to disempowerment and stigma for those with bodily impairments who become constructed as ‘unhealthy others’ seen as embodying ‘all the properties falling outside this health signified self’ (Watson, 1995).
In conclusion, participation in sport by men cannot be seen to be simply a matter of individual choice or as something entered into for ‘health’ reasons. Sport carries a range of socially integrated meanings for individual and groups of men that may vary over time and intersect with other aspects of identity, such as sexuality and disability, and further work is needed to more fully examine the structural and everyday constraints that act to influence men’s participation, and non-participation. The challenge for health promotion is to ensure that consideration be given to such meanings if sport is to be used as a vehicle for health work with men. Full consideration about how such work is approached should problematize the links between masculinity, sport and health, rather than taking them unquestioningly as a positive starting point, in order that damaging hegemonic masculine discourses and practices are at worst not replicated and at best challenged through such participation.
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Acknowledgement |
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This research has been made possible through an NHS Executive NorthWest, Research Fellowship Scheme grant.
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References |
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Received on July 24, 2002; accepted on November 11, 2002
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